The Madlanga Commission

Research Witness Profiles: A South African Method

How to build a research witness profile from South African inquiry records: what to include, where to check claims, and how to describe allegations fairly.

Published 2026-10-27

Research Witness Profiles: A South African Method

Research Witness Profiles: A South African Method

Researcher comparing inquiry testimony and affidavit

A research witness profile is a short, sourced record of who a witness is, what role they held, what they said, what they handed up as evidence and what was later tested or found. In South Africa you build one from the public record of an inquiry: transcripts, affidavits, exhibits, rulings and final reports. This guide sets out what to put in a profile, how to find the material, and how to describe disputed accounts without turning allegation into fact.

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TL;DR

Table of Contents

What a witness profile is, and what it is not

A witness profile is not a biography and not a verdict. It is a working document that anchors one person’s evidence to the record. A journalist uses it to check a quote before publishing. A lawyer uses it to see whether an account stayed consistent from affidavit to oral evidence. A researcher uses it to compare patterns across many witnesses.

The word “witness” covers very different people in an inquiry. Some give factual evidence about events they saw or did. Some are implicated by others and ask to respond. Some are experts who give an opinion. A profile that treats them all the same will mislead, so the first line of any profile should say which kind of witness this is.

The published rules of the judicial commission of inquiry define evidence broadly to include documents, affidavits, video, recordings and oral testimony submitted to a commission. That breadth matters for profiling. A witness’s evidence is rarely only what they said on the stand. It is usually a statement, a set of annexures and then the spoken evidence, and the three can differ.

The seven fields every profile needs

We suggest a fixed template. Fixed fields make profiles comparable, and they stop you from skipping the uncomfortable parts.

1. Identity and role at the relevant time

Give the full name, rank or title, and the institution, but always tied to a period. “Sergeant” or “Superintendent” means little unless you say when the person held that rank and in which unit. A role at the time of the events is what makes the evidence relevant; a role today is context only.

2. Type of witness

State whether the person gave factual evidence, was implicated by another witness, or appeared as an expert. For experts, the inquiry rules require a summary of qualifications and experience, a summary of the opinion, and an explanation of relevance to the commission’s work. If you are profiling an expert, those three items are the profile’s spine.

3. Why they came forward

Record the witness’s own stated reason for assisting the inquiry, in their words, and attribute it. In the State Capture Commission’s report, the way the first Free State witness, Mxolisi Dukoana, introduced his evidence on the asbestos and housing projects and bursaries shows why this matters: a stated motive is part of how a reader weighs the account, and it is not proof that the account is correct.

4. What they said, by topic and by date

Do not write one paragraph of summary. List the topics, and for each give the hearing day, the page or timestamp, and a neutral paraphrase. Use direct quotation only when the exact words are the point, and keep quotes short.

5. What they handed up

List affidavits, annexures and exhibits with their reference numbers. A witness who says a payment happened and attaches a bank record is in a different position from one who relies on memory alone. Keep the two visibly apart.

6. Who responded

Note any other witness who contradicted, corroborated or qualified the account, and whether the person implicated has had a chance to answer. More on that below.

7. Later findings and open questions

If a report, court ruling or disciplinary outcome has addressed the evidence, record it with its date. If nothing has, say that nothing has been found yet. Leaving the field blank is better than filling it with speculation.

Where to find the material in South African inquiry records

The best-organised precedent is the State Capture Commission. Its documents page organises public material by hearing day and includes witness statements, affidavits, transcripts, correspondence, exhibits, court papers, reports and annexures. It also warns that the collection is updated as documents become public or are redacted. For a profiler, that warning is practical advice: note the date you accessed each document and re-check before you publish.

Where to find the material in South African inquiry records — overview diagram

Its statistics page reports 430 hearings, 779 videos, 436 transcripts and 479 affidavits or statements, and it cautions that these figures cover published documents rather than everything the Commission held. So a missing transcript is not proof that no evidence was given. It may simply not be published.

The same page offers a witness query that shows the days on which a witness, organisation or state-owned entity was discussed. It recommends searching a correctly spelled surname or company name and accepts partial, case-insensitive terms. Two habits help:

For the Madlanga Commission, our archive follows the same logic but is built around the people and cases. Each witness page links to the hearing days, exhibits and related cases, so you can move from a name to the underlying record. You can see how that looks on pages such as Sergeant Rico van Wyk, Superintendent Elmarie de Beer or Professor Somadoda Fikeni.

Long inquiries produce thousands of pages, and reading them linearly is not realistic. A practical routine is to search first, then read in context. Full-text search finds the passage; the surrounding pages tell you whether the passage means what the snippet suggests.

If you work across several legal and legislative archives, it helps to learn the habits of transcript search for advocacy work, such as saving queries, filtering by speaker and keeping a running briefing document. Those habits transfer directly to inquiry records: one saved search per witness, one running note per hearing day.

A few rules we apply ourselves:

  1. Search by name variants, including misspellings that appear in transcripts.
  2. Open the original document for every quote. A summary, including ours, is a pointer and not a substitute.
  3. Record the exact hearing day, so another reader can find the same passage in minutes.
  4. Keep a separate list of documents mentioned in testimony but not yet published.

Connecting a witness’s role to their testimony

The strongest profiles explain why this person could know what they claim to know. That is the test of first-hand knowledge. A witness who sat in the meeting is positioned differently from one who heard about it afterwards.

A simple way to check is to build a small table for each key claim:

Claim Basis stated by witness Supporting document Other testimony Status
Meeting took place on a given date Attended in person Minutes or diary entry, if produced Another attendee confirms or denies Corroborated, disputed or untested
Payment was made Saw the transfer Bank record or invoice, if produced Recipient’s response Corroborated, disputed or untested
Instruction was given Received it directly Message or email, if produced Person named responds Corroborated, disputed or untested

The last column is the discipline. “Untested” is a legitimate and honest status, and it protects you and your reader.

Checking a witness’s claims against other evidence

No single page states a universal method for checking testimony against the wider record, so the approach below is our working practice, built on how inquiries publish their material.

Against exhibits. Compare each factual claim with the documents the witness or the evidence leaders produced. Look at dates, signatories, amounts and reference numbers. A mismatch of one day or one digit is worth noting and is often innocent, but it should be recorded.

Against other testimony. Search the same event, place or company across other hearing days. Note who corroborates, who contradicts and who adds detail the first witness left out.

Against responses. Look for the response of anyone implicated. If it is not yet in the record, say so.

Against later findings. Final reports and court outcomes may confirm, narrow or reject an account. Cite the page, not the headline.

For the documents themselves, the discipline of cross-referencing public filings is well described in this forensic guide to cross-referencing public records. Its core idea applies to inquiries: set what is claimed beside what the paper trail shows, and report the gap, not your theory about it.

Checking a witness's claims against other evidence — overview diagram

Describing allegations and disputed accounts fairly

This is where profiles most often go wrong. Three rules keep you on safe ground.

Attribute every allegation

Write “the witness told the commission that…”, not “X did…”. The attribution is not a hedge; it is accuracy. The commission has heard the claim, and that is a different fact from the claim being established.

Record whether the implicated person has been notified and heard

The inquiry rules require notice to a person who may be implicated by a witness, including how they may be implicated and the relevant witness statement or portions of it. They also allow an implicated person to apply to give evidence, call a witness or cross-examine. There is no automatic right to cross-examine before the commission; the chairperson may permit it where necessary and in the best interests of the inquiry. So a profile should say whether a response exists, and should not assume that silence means agreement.

Do not import court rules without checking

A commission is not a trial, but the law of evidence still shapes how we think about reliability. Under the Law of Evidence Amendment Act 45 of 1988, hearsay is generally not admitted in criminal or civil proceedings unless an exception applies, such as agreement, testimony by the person whose credibility supports the evidence, or a court’s assessment that admission is in the interests of justice. That Act governs courts. It does not set the standard for what an inquiry hears. But it is a useful reminder to mark which parts of a witness’s account are first-hand and which are what someone else told them.

If your profile will be published, and especially if it touches a named person’s reputation, have a lawyer read it. Defamation risk depends on the exact wording and the facts, and that is a question for a media lawyer, not a template.

Our perspective

We built the Madlanga Commission archive because the hearings are long, fast-moving and hard to follow in real time. With sitting days running to many hours, nobody outside the hearing room can reasonably watch everything. What readers need is the record in a form they can search and trace.

That is why we treat the witness page as the centre of the archive. A name should lead you to the hearing days, the case files, the exhibits and the rulings that surround it, so you can judge the evidence yourself. We try to describe what was said and what documents exist, and we leave conclusions to the commission’s findings.

Our advice to researchers is simple. Keep your template fixed, date everything, and let the “untested” status stand until something tests it. A careful profile that says less is worth more than a confident one that says too much.

— Meriol Lainchyon

Using the Madlanga Commission archive for profiles

If you are profiling a witness before this inquiry, start from The Investigation Room, our network view of evidence, and follow connections from a witness to the cases and documents around them. Pages such as Dr Ntandazo Sifolo, Laura Pop and Bafana Sindane show the format. Access is free.

For background on why searchable public records matter, see our piece on lessons from state capture, and our guide to evidence in inquiries and what witnesses must know.

A worked example of a profile entry

Here is how an entry might look, using the structure above and a deliberately generic subject so that no real person is characterised.

The last line is not a formality. Because published collections are updated as documents are released or redacted, a profile is only as current as its last check. Add a reminder to revisit any profile you rely on before you cite it again.

Common mistakes to avoid

FAQ

What is a witness profile in a South African inquiry?

It is a sourced summary of one witness’s role, evidence, supporting documents and the responses to it, drawn from the public record. It is not a finding of fact. The inquiry’s final report is where findings are made.

Where can I find a witness’s testimony and documents?

Start with the inquiry’s own published records: transcripts, affidavits, exhibits and rulings, organised by hearing day. The State Capture Commission’s site offers a witness query by surname or organisation, and our archive links each Madlanga Commission witness page to hearing days and related documents. Always open the original document before quoting it.

Do people implicated by a witness get to respond?

Under the published inquiry rules they must receive notice of how they are implicated, and they may apply to give evidence, call a witness or cross-examine. Cross-examination is not automatic and is for the chairperson to permit. Check the record for whether a response has been given.

What must an expert provide to the inquiry?

The rules require a summary of the expert’s qualifications and experience, a summary of the opinion, and an explanation of why it is relevant to the commission’s work. A profile of an expert should lead with those three points.

Sources